SOMEWHERE IN TIME

We are a few hours into another year now, and enter it with a sense both of endings and beginnings.  We lay to rest and we take up at the same time. 

Life is lived one moment at a time, isn't it?  Yet moments don't come out of a vacuum.  Moments bridge the past to the future.  They are the hinges, tiny hinges in time in which we are invited to comprehend the world we leave and the world into which we move.  A moment is where we connect mind, emotion, and will. It is the so-called, now where we choose what we will do with past, present, and future.  We are always in the moment but so often we don't understand the moment until it has become the past.  Also, the clock is always ticking, stopping for no one.  Therefore moments are always moving and so are those who live them.

In Psalm 31 we learn that for those of us who believe in and live for God our times are in God's hands.  Our past, present, and future, our moments in time, are caught up into the life of the One who called time into existence.  We are not alone.  Time marches on but in the hands of God.  God is in our moments and in Him we live and move and have our being.

How does this speak to our lives?  What does it mean for our times to be in God's hands?  Whatever the answers to these two questions are, somewhere in the mix the matter of faith comes to play a profound part.

Faith isn't only a belief.  Faith is trust. To believe in is to trust. To trust is to act. To act is to subject one's self to the trustworthiness of the object of one's faith.

Faith is rooted in relationship—relationship with God whom faith believes in trustworthy.  Faith, therefore, is not a visible issue so much as the evidence of things not seen; this and the integrity of God.

Because of the faithfulness of God one is free to live as a person of faith.  Immediate outcomes don't matter when everything is of faith in the faithfulness of God who keeps His Word.  Faith changes the inner life of a person, and tethers that person to God. 

In this relationship a faith-commitment emerges that becomes a crucial matter for people of the Living God. That commitment says, "What I want for my life is what God wants for me."   In that relationship context, for those of us who are seeking to be faithful to Jesus, a profound prayer accompanies that commitment.  It is the prayer Jesus taught us to pray to His and our Father, "Your will be done."  It's nothing to the left and nothing to the right.  What God want for us is the consuming passion. 

If we perceive that our times are in God's hands and if our passion is to want what He wants for us, then certain questions become important to us.

1. Is this what God wants for me?
2. How can God use this to get what He wants for me?
3. How do I pay attention to God?
4. How can I best listen for the voice of God?
5. How do I live as a servant of the Servant-King
6. What is my part in the relationship with God that God is providing for me?
7. How can I be present with the God who is present with me?

I think of several things Jesus called His disciples to embrace.  He said things to them like, "Deny yourself, Become like a child, Follow me, Obey me, Trust me."  Taking these things seriously require careful attention.  They require that we really show up in our relationship with Jesus.  They require a careful self-evaluation from time to time where we give ourselves to God in the spirit of the prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139:23-24). 

To love Jesus this way reveals that we really are in a relationship with God.  Our moments in time are not without meaning.  Our times are in the hand of God, and we treat them with upmost respect and dignity.  Our lives are not defined by the moments in time that have been given to us but by the God who has given the moments in time to us.  Since these moments are given to us, we take them as gifts, and seek to live as stewards of the gifts.

At this late date in my life, time has become a very important issue for me.  Perhaps it should have been more important to me all the time; but at least it is important now.  I think the wise Mr. Seuss speaks for me when he said, "How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?"

Truth is it got late so soon one moment at a time.  C. S. Lewis said, "The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."  Benjamin Franklin, "You may delay, but time will not."  And, I would be remiss if I did not add this thought from Eric Roth in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay. He says,  

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again. 

Albert Einstein said, "Time is an illusion."  I suppose that in a physics sort of way he might right.  However, this does not explain the wrinkles forming on my face, and the soreness in my bones, and the graying of what is left of the hair on my head.  Something is, in fact, going on, around me and in me; moving on is perhaps the best way to describe it.   Time is on the march with our without my attention. 

I am in no intellectual position to challenge Albert Einstein, but because of what I see in what is going on all around and in me, I'm going with the God of Scripture on this.  The Psalmist prayed to God, "I trust in you, Lord; I say, 'You are my God.'  My times are in your hands" (Psalm 31:14-15).

In this New Year in time may we take seriously what has been given us, and may we, time and time again, draw near to the God who has dared draw near to us.  Let's not follow Sam Levenson's counsel, "I'm going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!"